Just some brief thoughts after my crazy drive home (insane road conditions and accidents everywhere with 315 closed and 270 closed in both directions between 71 and 315). I thought it was a great show. March of the Pigs absolutely KILLED and was probably my favorite of the night along with Pinion/Wish. Really enjoyed Terrible Lie as well. I thought that the stage transitions before and after the Ghosts segment were awkward, especially the break after the Ghosts stuff before they tore into Pinion/Wish. They really brought the rock for the last segment of the show (after Ghosts and before the encore) and blazed threw several of their big "hits". Here's a brief setlist off the top of my head (I know I'm forgetting some stuff and some of it might be out of order):

999,9991,000,000Letting YouDisciplineMarch of the Pigscouple of other songs (I forget which ones)CloserGave Up

Ghosts stuff

Pinion/WishTerrible LieSurvivalismOnlyThe Hand that FeedsHead Like a Hole

Encore:couple of songs (I forget)Hurt

And the light show was absolutely ridiculous. The best I've seen since Daft Punk and their pyramid.

didn't expect it to start right at 7 so i missed the first 20 mins or so of boris. what I heard sounded good though, although not as loud as I'm used to hearing them.

NIN was good. If you cut 30 mins of songs from the last 3 albums out of the set it would have been even better (the exception being the great destroyer which I loved). If you replaced those 30 mins with songs I actually liked it would have been amazing. Best stage show i've ever seen bar none. I would pay full price NIN to see them doing a ghosts only tour but I love those discs. I got elbowed in the face during the 3rd song and lost one of the lenses in my glasses but amazingly I found it after the show and it's not even too horribly scratched up.

Traffic going home was a nightmare.

_________________Q: Is there room in this world for organized religion of any kind?

Warren Ellis: I have a soft spot for it. It's the compost bin at the end of my garden. And there's plenty of room in there for it.

I remember seeing NIN in the Schott on The Fragile tour, though it was packed the audience was lame as fuck. Every time I see them outside of Columbus, the crowds actually seem to enjoy themselves. Columbus is an uptight non-dancing, arms crossed in a "nothing impresses me" stance group of lame fucks when it comes to big rock shows. Columbus doesn't know how to fuck.

The show was good - although I've never seen a "bad" NIN show. Having been in Ohio since the start we have had the luxury of watching Trent come up through the ranks over the years, literally. From shows at Peabodys with about 20 people, to success of MTV and The Downward Spiral, The Self Destruct Tour, and beyond. This was prolly my 10th or 11th NIN show (not including Lollapaloozas), and I must say last night falls somewhere in the middle to bottom half. I've seen them much better, hell I've seen them much better in Columbus, Ohio. I did really like the stage setup and the way the show includes Ghosts stuff is very Bowie-esque... and like Bowie, some recent tours have dedicated a sizable portion to newer (experimental soundscapes) and less on album driven rockers or "hits". Think Bowie's last tour where he did a 15 minute version of Bring Me the Disco King. Trent kinda does the same thing with a Ghosts 3-4 song interlude, a point in the show where he rests up back stage apparently.

However, while admirable, I just don't think the setlist works as well as it should, esp for the Columbus crowd. The Ghosts stuff goes on too long and because of that, the set ends up omitting stuff like Down In It, Starfuckers, Sin, The Day the World Went Away, Reptile, etc... it puts the casual (to more than casual) fan off a bit. This makes the set slow to start, and it takes a while to get going and by the time it finally does, the inclusion of Ghosts stuff brings it right back down. Cool for the hardcore fans yes, but a mood breaker for others for sure. I understand what Trent is doing and I appreciate the dynamic of that material next to older stuff, but as a set it's frustrating. This is all ringing true when they launch into something like March of the Pigs (a highlight), viewing the reaction from crowd and band alike, you can see what they are capable of, and you remember why you like this band in the first place.

Also and I've said this before that venue sucks donkey balls. The sound is horrid, Even acts as diverse as Simon and Garfunkel or Metallica sound flat and fuzzy. The schott needs to be banned from holding concerts. Also, I think Trent needs to leave these Hockey arenas behind for a while.

It also should be noted that yes, the show sold like anthrax. Ohio loves Reznor (obviously), but for various reasons (Ghosts, venue, the economy) the venue was embarrassingly bare. They even closed off the (curtained) the entire top section of seats and the place still looked empty. Most concert goers noticed it too, saying NIN woulda been better at a sold out LC. They were right. I think it had an effect on the overall "meh" vibe of the crowd, esp in the seats. I heard a ton of grumbling. I should also point out that they had infant tees at the merch booth, an all telling sign that those suburban kids everyone refers to, were probably at home with their own kids last night.

Their last Columbus show, (With Teeth tour), was loads better, so was the setlist. Don't even get me started on how great NIN was opening for Bowie at Polaris years ago.

Also Reznor broke the second (the middle) screen after flinging his mic stand into it. He said "we don't bust things up like we used to, but sometimes shit still happens, I guess the screen's broke now", but by the encore it looked like the crew got it in a passable working order, still looked jacked though.

thank God I dodged the traffic and road problems.

I miss the old NIN shows.

Last edited by cdubya on Tue Nov 18, 2008 12:46 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Also and I've said this before that venue sucks donkey balls. The sound is horrid, Even acts as diverse as Simon and Garfunkel or Metallica sound flat and fuzzy. The schott needs to be banned from holding concerts. Also, I think Trent needs to leave these Hockey arenas behind for a while.

A couple responses to this. On the floor I thought the sound was fine. I could see the complain except that you go on to praise the show opening for bowie at polaris which had some of the worst sound of any venue ever.

I didn't even realize how empty the place was until I saw duffy's pics. The floor was packed although could have still used some more energy.

I realized before the show started that I was probably at a NIN show when some of the people there weren't even born yet. ugfh.

I do agree that the setlist order needed tweaked or something. I don't know that having the ghosts stuff in the middle was bad but it did definitely kill the momentum. I thought the show started really slow and the whole encore was a waste. but that has more to do with the fact that I don't like those songs than anything else.

Terrible lie and great destroyer were probably the highlights for me along with the ghosts stuff. I almost think trent would be better off starting to do arena NIN shows for the rocker stuff and maybe smaller venue NIN shows explicitly advertised as more "experimental" type stuff.

EDIT: to be fair, from my hazy memory I would say that the sound at NIN/bowie was probably about the best I ever heard polaris sound.

_________________Q: Is there room in this world for organized religion of any kind?

Warren Ellis: I have a soft spot for it. It's the compost bin at the end of my garden. And there's plenty of room in there for it.

Most concert goers noticed it too, saying NIN woulda been better at a sold out LC. They were right. I think it had an effect on the overall "meh" vibe of the crowd, esp in the seats. I heard a ton of grumbling.

NIN would be a phenominal outdoor show at the LC, and would easily sell out there.

Trent kinda does the same thing with a Ghosts 3-4 song interlude, a point in the show where he rests up back stage apparently.

wasn't that trent on the right hand side of the stage playing xylophone and electronic precussion during the ghosts set? admittedly not as intensive as his playing/singing the rest of the set but hardly resting up backstage (which I have seen axl rose do during repeated instrumental breaks).

_________________Q: Is there room in this world for organized religion of any kind?

Warren Ellis: I have a soft spot for it. It's the compost bin at the end of my garden. And there's plenty of room in there for it.

Trent kinda does the same thing with a Ghosts 3-4 song interlude, a point in the show where he rests up back stage apparently.

wasn't that trent on the right hand side of the stage playing xylophone and electronic precussion during the ghosts set? admittedly not as intensive as his playing/singing the rest of the set but hardly resting up backstage (which I have seen axl rose do during repeated instrumental breaks).

yes - he left for a portion of one of them, but he was there for the majority of it - resting up, back OF the stage I guess.

so yeah this show really was amazing...i was still on the fence yesterday afternoon and after being caller #2 when 101 were giving away their last pair i decided i had to go-i got a general admission ticket for $40 from craigslist-so glad i did

i had too much runnin around to do so i only saw like the last 2 minutes of boris-bummer

i'd forgotten who was on the tour-weird seeing beck's bass player up there....freese is a machine and it was cool to see fink back with trent...this was my first time seeing the beefed up short haired trent and it occurred to me some of those kids didn't know any different

the crowd was kind of lame-i got relatively close when they played gave up and the pit or whatever was super weak-like i wanted to instigate some aggressiveness but i didn't really wanna be throwin around teenagers

the sound was dope as fuck on the floor-i thought hurt sounded super awesome

but wow that fucking stage/light production-wow-never seen anything like it in my life...i don't think it was a projection though-that was all led right? fucking only was so cool...solid light on the screen or whatever and when trent got close to it the lights the lights in that particular area went off...so cool...he also moved all the lights all iphone like

this nonsense about the ghosts songs breaking the momentum or whatever is sillly...these dudes weren't going through the motions-it was intense-the ghosts songs were kind of a breather for the band and keep in mind, even though the crowd wasn't that aggro here in columbus, it seem like a band like that needs lulls in the set to calm the crowd down after heavy tracks or whatever

I attended the show. The show got out early - it was done at 10pm. We got The Wretched, Vessel, The Big Comedown. But.....we did not get the last section, AT ALL. We were done with HLAH. No Echoplex, no Hurt, no In This Twilight. We all just stood there for a while, but the lights went up. sad smiley There didn't seem to be any indication that anything was wrong. Maybe someone is ill? I don't know, it seemed to be really high-powered and energetic to the end. What happened???

_________________if I had the time or desire I would post a pic of Blair from Facts of Life and 1990 era Chip to produce the same effect

Looks like small crowds at a few other recent shows. In the nin.com forums, there is mention of only about 3,800 people at the show in Grand Rapids, MI and only about 2,000 at the show in Ft. Wayne, IN.

didn't expect it to start right at 7 so i missed the first 20 mins or so of boris.

We got there at 7:45 and missed all of Boris. That ruined the first half of NIN's set for me.

That being said, I think the setlist was fine. I would've liked to have heard more from Pretty Hate Machine, but that's mostly 'cause I'm old. The light show was possibly the most amazing I have ever seen.

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